The Stillness of Morning
by C.R. Cheetah
Summary: One mans thoughts as all of Sherwood lies still and quiet in reverence to the dawning of a new day as he too waits with quiet resignation as his thoughts drift a childhood love. No matter how the world changes, this one thing will not.


_Author Disclaimer: I do not own the characters of BBC Robin Hood._

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The forest was quiet engulfed in an unsettling stillness, however whilst all of Sherwood slumbered merrily into the new mornin

The forest was quiet engulfed in an unsettling stillness, however whilst all of Sherwood slumbered merrily into the new morning, one man did not.

Sherwood may be quiet but his thoughts were anything but, slipping in like misers they would not let him alone.

Therefore he lay still listening to the beginnings of morning as all of the forest awoke, a welcome respite from the incessant grating hum of thoughts that hung on like a bad neighbor refusing to leave.

Absently he wondered if there was such a thing as an off button.

Likely not.

Instead he focused on the soft breaths of those sleeping about him, _not of how close they'd come to being caught_, letting the hypnotizing lull of soft snores ease his mind, _not how close he'd come to loosing her_, ignoring the pang at his heart, they were all alive, _not wondering how much longer he'd be able to sooth himself with that shoddy excuse_.

Not doubting, not questioning everything he's done, everything he's going to do.

Drowning everything within the babbling brook, its sound soft gliding as silk sheets and satin, _satin like pale smooth skin_…the thump-thump of a redheaded woodpecker catching this morning meal, _the thrumming of his heart – it still beat faster when she was near_, the screeching hawk circling prey for the young that waited impatiently in some nest she and her mate had built, _an impossible future to an outlaw_.

Every nuance and sound magnified by the morning stillness, back lighted by the wind slashing his face jolting him free of his winding thoughts with the harshness of reality, another day had come. He hated the stillness of morning here, without the hustle of sound, of life, leaving him laid bare to himself, no more half-truths, no lies, only doubts, and thoughts that held no place in his waking world. He didn't have time for doubts.

Not when lives deepened on him knowing what he was about.

Not when second-guessing could get him a hang mans noose.

Eye closed he felt the lights begin to touch his eyelids lightening the dark, as he summoned an image of her to mind, hers was a beauty that in his eyes held no flaw, she was his Gwynafar – _the warrior queen_, his Isolde – _the fair_, his Juliet – _the kind of love worth dying for_. She, Marian, was his one love and even as he winked and bantered with any other, he knew that she was it. The true miracle lay in knowing that she loved him in return.

Even after all this time.

It was the only thing in all of England that had not changed. In a world were life was day to day, and deaths, doom, capture always crowded in the back of the mind, it was a nice sentiment to hold close in the dead of night, or the still of morning when all that existed was doubt.

Here lay one surety.

He let his eyes fluttered open when he felt the heat of eyes on him, he rolled onto his back and became still, all worries flying out the window as he realizes she'd been watching him, replaced with smug amusement that he hides feigning sleep letting his breathes even out once more.

He'd heard the little catch in her breath and he smiled inwardly imagining her heart stopped beating too from the silence to follow.

"_I wonder what she dreams of when she goes to bed at night, her plain, beautiful, nightshift clinging so close…does she think of me, as I think of her? Or does she plan the next step to infiltrating the intrigues of Nottingham, the next appearance of the Night watchman? Or of roses and unending fields of grass?" _And he would never know.

But he could pretend...

He knew he should not be thinking of her like that, of various, innocent enough, stages of undress he'd seen her in throughout the years. He knew that, but that did little in preventing his mind from wondering, imagining.

He was a man after all, what could you expect?

He may be the notorious _Robin Hood_ but he was no saint – not by anyone's standards. No more than a man fighting a battle someone else should have started long ago.

Hence, he stayed with eyes lightly shut Marian's likeness branded across his eyelids: her eyes glaring daggers so dark a blue they stormed, her eyes soft and tender in a rare moment of intimacy no longer storming instead soft as summer skies, a smile bright as stars, a frown condemning like deaths gimlet stare.

Her laughter…_a flutter of butterflies and tinkling bells, _her voice…_smooth and calm_…_honest and true like the sound of justice if ever it had a sound it would be Marian's voice_, the bite of her words…_sharp as an arrow cutting to the quick with a resounding clank as it cleaved_, Marian, her name rolling around in his head unbidden but not unwanted.

"_Marian."_

Sometimes, Robin believes, he thinks of her more than is sane.

More than is wise, or safe, for any man to think of a woman not his wife and perhaps never to be when everything lies in the hands of fate, when the man himself, is a bandit, brigand, outlaw, _unworthy. _

He'd never been deserving of her, not when he left for the Holy Lands, not when he returned, and not now, Robin Hood or not.

He may _want, need, desire, love_ her more than was good, more than he wished because need was not an easy thing for Robin to accept.

In his own fashion from the time when they were children to this plateau of _danger, disaster, death_ they'd come to he'd always loved her.

But he'd never deserved her.

That had never changed, not even as the rest of their world had.


End file.
